A vivid dark purple, white text passes AA
What color is indigo?
indigo is a vivid dark purple: #4b0082 in hex, rgb(75 0 130). White text on it reaches 12.95:1, passing WCAG AAA. Recolor (recolor.page) shows it on a real page below.
Last updated
| Format | Value |
|---|---|
| Keyword | indigo |
| Hex | #4b0082 |
| RGB | rgb(75 0 130) |
| HSL | hsl(275 100% 25%) |
| OKLCH | oklch(33.9% 0.179 301.7) |
| Nearest Tailwind color | purple-900 #59168b, 0.042 away in OKLab |
| White text | 12.95:1: AA passes, AAA passes, large text passes |
| Black text | 1.62:1: AA fails, AAA fails, large text fails |
About indigo
Measured in OKLCH, indigo comes out at lightness 33.9%, chroma 0.179 and hue 301.7 degrees: a vivid dark purple.
HSL calls its lightness 25%, OKLCH 33.9%: 8 points between a formula and a measure of what the eye sees. No CSS named color comes near it: the closest, midnightblue (#191970), is 0.101 away in OKLab.
White on indigo reads at 12.95:1, enough for AAA body text; black reaches 1.62:1 and should stay off it. In the hue-sorted table of named colors it sits between rebeccapurple and thistle.
In Tailwind CSS 4.3.3 the nearest default color is purple-900 (#59168b), 0.042 away in OKLab; for the exact color, an arbitrary value such as bg-[#4b0082] works.
Tints and shades
- #ded6ec
- #beafd8
- #9f88c3
- #8162ae
- #653a99
- #4b0082
- #390065
- #280049
- #17002f
- #090016
- #010003
From light to dark: 5 toward white and 5 toward black, mixed in OKLCH a sixth of the way at a time with the hue kept. A step that would repeat its neighbor is left out.
A palette around it
- #4b0082
- #8c76a5
- #ffebd8
- #00665d
- #bdaedc
Around indigo as swatch 1, Recolor's generator made a triadic palette, three hues a third of the wheel apart: #8c76a5, #ffebd8, #00665d, #bdaedc, drawn from a seed fixed by its hex. Open it in Recolor.
Using indigo
As a text color, indigo on a white page gives the same 12.95:1.
.notice {
background-color: indigo; /* #4b0082 */
color: white; /* 12.95:1 */
}Common questions
Does white text pass WCAG AA on indigo?
Yes. White text measures 12.95:1 on indigo, above the 4.5:1 that WCAG AA asks of body text, and above AAA's 7:1 too.
Can indigo be written in OKLCH?
Yes: oklch(33.9% 0.179 301.7), computed from #4b0082. A named color is an sRGB color, so its OKLCH value converts back to the same hex.
Is there a named color close to indigo?
No. The nearest, midnightblue (#191970), is 0.101 away in OKLab, a different color.